 steal a slice of bacon
when Perrault's back was turned, he duplicated the performance the following
day, getting away with the whole chunk. A great uproar was raised, but he was
unsuspected; while Dub, an awkward blunderer who was always getting caught, was
punished for Buck's misdeed.
    This first theft marked Buck as fit to survive in the hostile Northland
environment. It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to
changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible
death. It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a
vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence. It was all
well enough in the Southland, under the law of love and fellowship, to respect
private property and personal feelings; but in the Northland, under the law of
club and fang, whoso took such things into account was a fool, and in so far as
he observed them he would fail to prosper.
    Not that Buck reasoned it out. He was fit, that was all, and unconsciously
he accommodated himself to the new mode of life. All his days, no matter what
the odds, he had never run from a fight. But the club of the man in the red
sweater had beaten into him a more fundamental and primitive code. Civilized, he
could have died for a moral consideration, say the defence of Judge Miller's
riding-whip; but the completeness of his decivilization was now evidenced by his
ability to flee from the defence of a moral consideration and so save his hide.
He did not steal for joy of it, but because of the clamor of his stomach. He did
not rob openly, but stole secretly and cunningly, out of respect for club and
fang. In short, the things he did were done because it was easier to do them
than not to do them.
    His development (or retrogression) was rapid. His muscles became hard as
iron, and he grew callous to all ordinary pain. He achieved an internal as well
as external economy. He could eat anything, no matter how loathsome or
indigestible; and, once eaten, the juices of his stomach extracted the last
least particle of nutriment; and his blood carried it to the farthest reaches of
his body, building it into the toughest and stoutest of tissues. Sight and scent
became remarkably keen, while his hearing developed such acuteness that in his
sleep he heard the faintest sound and knew whether it heralded peace or peril.
He learned to bite the ice out with his teeth when it collected between
